Senate Dems launch 'super PAC'

Top Democratic operatives are quietly building an aggressive campaign machine to battle huge Republican third-party spending and sway critical Senate races in 2012.

The strategists, including pros like longtime advisers to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are putting the finishing touches on a group called the Majority PAC, a “super PAC” that can raise unlimited money to attack or support candidates. It is modeled on the third-party operation, Patriot Majority PAC, which ran bruising TV ads against tea party candidates like Reid’s opponent, Sharron Angle, last year and mocked one of his prospective challengers, Sue Lowden, for suggesting she would be open to bartering chickens for health care.

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The Majority PAC’s emergence comes at a pivotal time for Senate Democrats. Not only do they need to defend 23 seats to Republicans’ 10 this cycle, they also must woo Democratic donors alongside President Barack Obama, who is preparing for his own reelection bid in 2012.

The all-star team, already mapping out prospective targets, could emerge as the key attacker of Republicans in Democrats’ battle to hang onto the Senate in 2012.

While the Majority PAC will be required to disclose its donors, it will be affiliated with an organization that isn’t. So at least some of the money could hail from anonymous donors, a tactic Democrats bitterly decried last year.

The operation is in seasoned hands. Longtime Reid strategist Rebecca Lambe and Reid’s former chief of staff, Susan McCue, are leading the charge — along with Craig Varoga, who runs the Patriot Majority. Two other veteran political operatives who once led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — J.B. Poersch and Jim Jordan — are also spearheading the effort, as are veteran Democratic fundraiser Monica Dixon and longtime Democratic attorney Marc Elias.

“The best Senate strategists in the country are coming together for 2012 to make sure Senate races have every tool needed to win,” said McCue, still one of Reid’s most trusted advisers. “We are approaching this as a team led by those who know how to win in the toughest, most competitive races across the country.”

Lambe and McCue have been powerful Reid advisers for years, helping lead the senator’s upset victory in Nevada last year. And Elias is a well-known Washington attorney who argued Al Franken’s successful recount fight before the Minnesota courts in 2009. Reid is not personally involved in this effort, sources say.

“This alignment is unprecedented,” McCue said.

In 2010, Jordan and Dixon ran a super PAC called Commonsense Ten, which spent more than $3 million in independent expenditures in several Senate races last cycle, including in Washington state, Colorado, Missouri and Kentucky. The Patriot Majority spent about $2 million last cycle, and it has pumped more than $25 million into 26 states since it was formed in December 2005. Poersch, who has close ties to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), served as executive director of the DSCC in the past three election cycles, when Democrats regained power in the Senate and managed to hold onto their majority last year after suffering deep losses at the polls.